US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8790

WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has asked the White House for documents about some of President Trump’s most scrutinized actions since taking office, including the firing of his national security adviser and F.B.I. director, according to White House officials.

Mr. Mueller is also interested in an Oval Office meeting Mr. Trump had with Russian officials in which he said the dismissal of the F.B.I. director had relieved “great pressure” on him.

The document requests provide the most details to date about the breadth of Mr. Mueller’s investigation, and show that several aspects of his inquiry are focused squarely on Mr. Trump’s behavior in the White House.

In recent weeks, Mr. Mueller’s office sent a document to the White House that detailed 13 areas in which investigators are seeking information. Since then, administration lawyers have been scouring White House emails and asking officials whether they have other documents or notes that may pertain to Mr. Mueller’s requests.

One of the requests is about a meeting Mr. Trump had in May with Russian officials in the Oval Office the day after James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was fired. That day, Mr. Trump met with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak, along with other Russian officials. The New York Times reported that in the meeting Mr. Trump had said that firing Mr. Comey relieved “great pressure” on him.

Mr. Mueller has also requested documents about the circumstances of the firing of Michael T. Flynn, who was Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser. Additionally, the special counsel has asked for documents about how the White House responded to questions from The Times about a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. That meeting was set up by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, to get derogatory information from Russians about Hillary Clinton.

In July, when The Times put questions about the meeting to the White House, Mr. Trump and senior administration officials prepared a response on Air Force One that made no mention of the meeting’s real purpose, saying instead that it focused on Russian adoptions. Mr. Mueller has asked for all documents the White House has about the meeting, and all internal White House communications about the statement drafted on Air Force One.

Ty Cobb, the lawyer Mr. Trump hired to provide materials related to the Russia investigation to the special counsel and Congress, has told Mr. Mueller’s office that he will turn over many of the documents this week.

“We can’t comment on any specific requests being made or our conversations with the special counsel,” he said.

Based on the document request to the White House, there is no indication that Mr. Mueller is pressing to examine Mr. Trump’s personal finances or business dealings — areas the president has said should be off limits. It is not clear whether Mr. Mueller has made separate document requests elsewhere to examine those subjects.

Mr. Mueller has asked for all internal White House communications about numerous former campaign officials, including Paul J. Manafort, the former campaign chairman who is now under federal investigation. The document request also seeks communications about Mr. Trump’s campaign foreign policy team: Carter Page, J. D. Gordon, Keith Kellogg, George Papadopoulos, Walid Phares and Joseph E. Schmitz.

Of the 13 subjects in Mr. Mueller’s document request, four are related to Mr. Flynn. The retired lieutenant general was fired in February after it was revealed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about December phone calls he had with Mr. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador at the time.

American officials said Mr. Flynn had told the vice president that he had only exchanged holiday greetings with Mr. Kislyak, when in fact the two men had discussed economic sanctions against Russia. The phone calls took place in late December, around the same time the Obama administration was announcing sanctions to punish Russia for what American officials said was a Russian campaign to disrupt the November presidential election.

F.B.I. agents interviewed Mr. Flynn about the phone calls, and the special counsel has requested all internal White House communications about the F.B.I. interview. Mr. Mueller has also asked for documents about how the White House responded to concerns raised by the Justice Department that Mr. Flynn might be subject to Russian blackmail for misleading Mr. Pence about the calls.

Three of Mr. Mueller’s requests focus on Mr. Comey’s firing. The special counsel wants any White House documents about the decision-making that led to Mr. Comey’s firing, and about all meetings Mr. Comey had with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Mueller was appointed in May, shortly after it was revealed that Mr. Comey had written a series of memos about his interactions with Mr. Trump — including one Oval Office meeting when Mr. Comey said Mr. Trump had asked him to end the F.B.I. investigation of Mr. Flynn. During another meeting, the president asked for a pledge of loyalty from the F.B.I. director, according to Mr. Comey’s public testimony.

The special counsel has requested documents about a statement made a week before Mr. Comey’s firing by the former White House press secretary, Sean Spicer.

During a May 3 news briefing, Mr. Spicer said that “the president has confidence in the director.”

The previous night, Mr. Trump had tweeted that Mr. Comey “was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!”

The Republican National Committee is using a pool of money stockpiled for election recounts and other legal matters to pay for President Trump's ballooning lawyer fees related to the multiple Russia investigations, directing more than $427,000 so far to lawyers representing him and his eldest son, party officials confirmed Tuesday.

The RNC will report that last month it paid $100,000 to Trump's personal attorney John Dowd, and $131,250 to Jay Sekulow, another member of his legal team, in a Federal Election Commission report set to be filed Wednesday.

The party is also covering the mounting legal costs for the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., spending nearly $200,000 this month on lawyers who helped him prepare for his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Those payments, including more than $166,000 to attorney Alan Futerfas, will be reported on the RNC's FEC filing next month.

All the legal fees “have been paid with funds from a pre-existing legal proceedings account and do not reduce by a dime the resources we can put towards our political work,” RNC spokeswoman Cassie Smedile said in a statement. Reuters and CNN first reported the party payments.

The decision to tap the legal account comes after RNC officials debated this summer whether those funds could be used to help defray the costs related to the Russia probes. Some party officials thought it would be more appropriate to create a separate legal defense fund for the case, The Washington Post reported in July.

RNC officials concluded that it is permissible for the party to pay for the president's legal fees, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Separately, party and administration officials are working to determine whether executive branch staff members, who must comply with gift rules, could have their legal fees defrayed by the RNC or private legal defense funds.

The party's legal account was created by a 2014 spending measure, one of a trio of new accounts slipped into an end-of-the-year bill that dramatically expanded how much wealthy individuals could give to the national parties. Donors are permitted to give triple the amount to the special accounts than they can contribute to the party's main political fund.

Under the law, money for the legal account is to be “used to defray expenses incurred with respect to the preparation for and the conduct of election recounts and contests and other legal proceedings.’’

The RNC has raised millions to go into the account since its creation, thanks to six-figure checks from rich party backers. In July alone, half a dozen donors each contributed $101,700 to the legal account, including Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus and San Francisco investment company executive Charles Schwab, FEC filings show.

Trump's reelection committee — which is largely financed by small donors — has also directed to money to lawyers dealing with the Russia investigations. Such payments are permitted under federal law, as long as the legal expenses resulted from campaign activity.

In July, the committee reported paying $50,000 to Futerfas's law firm June 27. That payment was made 13 days before it was publicly revealed that Futerfas would represent Donald Trump Jr., who held a June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who was said to have potentially damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

In addition, the campaign committee paid the Trump Corporation — a company being run by Trump Jr. and his brother, Eric — more than $89,000 for “legal consulting” June 30, the report showed.

It remains unknown whether Trump, who has said he is worth billions, is personally paying any of his legal expenses. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not respond to a question about whether the president is helping defray the costs.

On September 21 2017 07:51 Sermokala wrote:

quoteing your post to respond your link is to the radio superman show not the TV show But thats halarious thanks for posting that.

On September 21 2017 09:13 Plansix wrote:
Steve Miller's speech is making Trump look powerless.

On September 21 2017 09:13 IyMoon wrote:


What speech?

In a sharp departure from his predecessors, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price last week took private jets on five separate flights for official business, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars more than commercial travel.

The secretary’s five flights, which were scheduled between Sept. 13 and Sept. 15, took him to a resort in Maine where he participated in a Q&A discussion with a health care industry CEO, and to community health centers in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, according to internal HHS documents.

The travel by corporate-style jet comes at a time when other members of the Trump administration are under fire for travel expenditures, and breaks with the practices of Obama-era secretaries Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Kathleen Sebelius, who flew commercially while in the continental United States.

Price, a frequent critic of federal spending who has been developing a plan for departmentwide cost savings, declined to comment.

HHS spokespeople declined to confirm details of the flights or respond to questions about who paid for them, with a spokesperson saying only that Price sometimes charters planes when commercial flights aren’t feasible. All three organizations that hosted Price last week — the Massachusetts-based health IT firm athenahealth, Goodwin Community Health Center in New Hampshire and the Mirmont Treatment Center in Pennsylvania — told POLITICO they did not pay for his flights or other travel costs.

“As part of the HHS mission to enhance and protect the health and well-being of the American people, Secretary Price travels on occasion outside Washington to meet face to face with the American people to hear their thoughts and concerns firsthand,” an HHS spokesperson said, adding, “When commercial aircraft cannot reasonably accommodate travel requirements, charter aircraft can be used for official travel.”

Price’s spokespeople declined to comment on why he considered commercial travel to be unfeasible. On one leg of the trip — a sprint from Dulles International Airport to Philadelphia International Airport, a distance of 135 miles — there was a commercial flight that departed at roughly the same time: Price’s charter left Dulles at 8:27 a.m., and a United Airlines flight departed for Philadelphia at 8:22 a.m., according to airport records.

Sample round-trip fares for the United flight ranged from $447 to $725 per person on United.com, though the price would have been lower if booked in advance or if Price’s party received government discounts. Similarly priced commercial flights also left from Reagan National Airport and Baltimore Washington International. By contrast, the cost of chartering the plane was roughly $25,000, according to Ultimate Jet Charters, which owns the Embraer 135LR twin jet that ferried Price and about 10 other people to the clinic event.

In addition, Amtrak ran four trains starting at 7 a.m. that left Washington’s Union Station and arrived at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station no later than 9:58 a.m. The least-expensive ticket, on the 7:25 a.m. train, costs $72 when booked in advance. It is just a 125-mile drive from HHS headquarters in downtown Washington to the Mirmont Treatment Center outside of Philadelphia, where Price spoke. Google Maps estimates the drive as about 2½ hours. A one-way trip was estimated by travel planners to be about $30 in gasoline per SUV plus no more than $16 in tolls.

An HHS spokesperson declined to answer questions on how many private charter flights Price has taken since being confirmed as secretary on Feb. 10, but wrote in an emailed response, “Official travel by the secretary is done in complete accordance with Federal Travel Regulations.”

Current and former staffers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say Price has been taking private jets to travel domestically for months.

Ethics experts say the use of private charters by government officials, while legal, is highly dubious and in most cases a misuse of taxpayer funding.

“I can understand why the secretary might have to use a charter flight to get to a hurricane-devastated region, but Philadelphia is not one of those regions this year,” said Walter Shaub, who was director of the United States Office of Government Ethics until July. “I find it hard to believe he couldn’t find a suitable commercial flight to Philadelphia.”

“This wasteful conduct reflects disdain for the ethical principle of treating public service as a public trust,” said Shaub, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. “Public office isn’t supposed to come with frivolous perks at taxpayer expense.”

Shaub said that the trips violate the “spirit” of the Federal Travel Regulations, citing the express guidance contained in the regulations that “taxpayers should pay no more than necessary for your transportation.”

Members of the Trump administration have come under scrutiny for excessive use of government travel resources. The president and his family have rung up travel expenses at a faster rate than previous presidential families. The inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced a probe into Administrator Scott Pruitt's frequent travel to his home state of Oklahoma. The Treasury Department’s inspector general is looking into Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s use of a government jet on a trip to Fort Knox, Kentucky, that involved viewing the solar eclipse. Most recently, ABC News reported that Mnuchin had requested a government plane to take him on his overseas honeymoon. The request was withdrawn on the grounds that it was unnecessary.

On September 21 2017 09:44 Mohdoo wrote:
I wonder what has allowed Steve Miller to hang around. I don't know enough about his background to know how he'd manage to be so resilient.

President Donald Trump's base seems to be totally fine with him making recent overtures to Democrats, a Monmouth University poll showed Wednesday.

Respondents overwhelmingly said that Trump's dealings with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were not a problem at all.

Monmouth asked those surveyed if Trump has either been too willing to work with Democrats, not willing enough, or has he shown the right amount of willingness.

Among Republican respondents, just 6% said Trump was too willing to work with Democrats. A whopping 88% said he was either not willing enough or had shown the proper amount of willingness to work across the aisle. When respondents who identified as "conservative" were asked, just 5% said Trump was too willing to work with Democrats. On the other hand, 87% of conservative respondents said he either showed the proper amount of willingness or should be more willing.

When Monmouth asked respondents from counties that Trump won over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by more than 10 points last fall, 87% said Trump was showing the right amount of willingness or should be more willing to work with Democrats, while just 4% said Trump was too willing.

Facebook is tightening controls on its advertising targeting tools, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg announced in a statement acknowledging that the ability for advertisers to target “Jew haters” until last week was “totally inappropriate and a fail on our part”.

The policy change follows an embarrassing report by ProPublica on Thursday that the company’s ad-buying system allowed advertisers to target users interested in antisemitic subjects. Subsequent reporting found additional bigoted terms in Facebook’s system that could be used to target advertisements.

“The fact that hateful terms were even offered as options was totally inappropriate and a fail on our part,” Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post. “We never intended or anticipated this functionality being used this way – and that is on us. And we did not find it ourselves – and that is also on us.”

The announcement and mea culpa come amid increased scrutiny of Facebook’s advertising tools.

On 6 September, Facebook acknowledged that an influence operation probably based in Russia purchased $100,000 worth of ads on its platform to promote divisive social and political messages. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, had previously said that the idea that “fake news” on the platform had influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election was “a pretty crazy idea”, though the company’s own sales team touts its ability to “significantly shift voter intent” through Facebook ads.

On Wednesday, 20 Democratic senators and representatives wrote to the Federal Election Commission to urge it “develop new guidance” for digital advertising platforms “to prevent illicit foreign spending in US elections”.

Sandberg’s statement did not address lawmakers’ concerns about Facebook’s role in swaying elections, but instead focused on the targeting problem revealed by ProPublica.

The bigoted categories appeared as options for ad targeting because the company used an algorithm to generate the options based on what users wrote in their user profiles about their education and work history. About 2,300 Facebook users wrote on their profiles that they studied “Jew hater” in college, for example, automatically generating the phrase as an advertising target.

Facebook disabled those targeting fields following the ProPublica report, and is now reinstating only those targeting options that have been reviewed by a human, Sandberg said. The company will add “more human review and oversight to our automated processes”, she said, though Facebook did not immediately respond to queries about the specifics of their plans.

Additionally, Sandberg said that the company was creating a system for users to report abuses of the ad system and “clarifying [its] advertising policies and tightening [its] enforcement processes” to ensure that ad targeting was not used in a way that violated Facebook’s “community standards”.

Facebook previously updated its advertising policies in February to address criticism that the ability for advertisers to exclude users based on their “ethnic affinity” enabled advertisers to break US anti-discrimination laws.

Privacy advocates have long raised concerns about the degree of targeting made possible by Facebook’s vast trove of personal data. In May, the Australian reported that the company had told advertisers that it could identify when teenagers were feeling “insecure” and “worthless”.